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I'll tell you why Riot think Zeds a Healthy Assassin

Guy Fox Teemo··64 votes·6,793 views

HE CAN"T KILL MORE THEN ONE TARGET EVERY 80 SECONDS (At MAX rank that is). Every other assassin has resets or massive aoe to do it. Zed is limited to 1 target and one target only unless hes godly fed 10 and 0 in lane. Then i Almost 100% gurantee that Zed is never going to kill you by himself. Without his ult.

Talon has a massive aoe ult that can hit an entire team twice if use correctly. He also has insane single target burst.

Leblanc has and aoe w that does godly damage has 2 jumps. Her ult is on a very low cd for how much it does. Allowing her to constantly kill you.

Akali has resets if she gets a kill, and can stack her ult 3 times, and sit in her shroud to wait for CD's.

Katarina does AOE q, AOE w, Single Target E, HUGE AOE Ult. Short cd Ult, and has resets.

Fizz has relatively long CD's early game, late game though his ult is on a 46-50 second CD. He doesn't really need his ult AS much as zed to kill someone, since he has sustained damage with W. Though after his recent nerfs he does require his ult a bit more to get that full burst.

Nidalee is 100% reliant on landing her Q spear, if she doesn't land it, dont ever expect to die to her. She can't run at you with cougar (Unless your someone like Mordekaiser , but even then Mordekaiser would just kill you soon as you jumped) She has quite a low CD on her Q though it has a 90 Mana cost. But she can constantly get kills every 3-5 seconds. As long as she lands the spear since he R resets.

Kha'zix has resets on his jumps to jump from person to person if he gets a kill and quite a short CD on her Q.

Master Yi has resets, and another reset passive, and huge AA damage because of how he builds, he's also very hard to run away from because of his Movespeed and resistent to slows.

Rengar And Shaco are the only ones i think wouldn't qualify for the constantly getting kills and resets, as with the rest of the ones i've listed.

This is the reason why Riot thinks Zed is healthy, because Zed is by definition the only one out of the assassin who is an ACTUAL assassin, everyone else has huge burst, resets, AOE damage, etc. I know Zed is annoying to play against and can be frustrating for the player, but Zed only brings one thing to a team, and thats' 1 single target HUGE burst (not instant, and easily countered) he's more just annoying to play against in lane cause of how safe Zed is to farm, and poke. But thats about it. His split pushing got nerfed. So he has WAVE CLEAR (Requires he put himself at risk though by using his entire combo besides R, long CD on W) Very limited in who he can kill, if someone has Zhonya's it can completely destroys Zed. And don't give me that bullshit of "But i shouldn't be forced to build Zhonya's" Well that SUCKS, your SUPPOSE to be be itemizing against the champion your playing, if your against a dam kalista as a tank then you should build a freaking Thorn Mail or Frozen heart. Because of how much attack speed she has. Idk why people cry about having to build Zhonya's, you build it anyways or should if your against any other ad assassin if not your stupid. It gives a huge amount of AP, armor , and an amazing active, that just so happens TO BE THE PERFECT COUNTER, for Zed, You should be freaking HAPPY that their is an ITEM, that 100% nulls a champions combo. No other champion is 100% just Nulled because of 1 item. Talon can just e to you and if you Zhonya's just wait it out and then kill you right after.

I really do not know why people complain about having to build Zhonya's against Zed, its the only AP Armour item you'd be stupid not to (Except Iceborn Guantlet but thats not really worth on a mage). No ones forcing you to build it, but it preety much ruins Zed. Why would you not build an item that just completely destroys a champion? Hell if their was an item that could completely nullify riven then i'd freaking build it. I wouldn't have to stack Frozen Heart, Iceborn Guantlet, Randuins, Sunfire Cape, JUST so I don't get 100-0 as Nasus. Even then she can still itemize against my build to null it. With Zed zhonya's passive just ruins him, and you should be happy it does. Don't go crying about having to build Zhonya's against an AD assassin. Until RIOT makes a new AP Armour item for mages. Your stuck with Zhonya's, don't be bitching when RIOT gives you a dam free win in a duel against Zed, arguably the best duelist in the game.

Tl;Dr Zeds healthy because to wave clear he must use his Q W E. For full clear, and w has long CD. He's limited to ONE person to kill every 80 seconds, unless he's super fed and outplays the shit out of you and 1v2's. Though thats your own fault. He gets completely nullified by Zhonya's He can't constantly kill, like every other assassin in the game (Besides Rengar and Shaco)

95 Comments

Baron Von Bangin40 votes

I think your argument would've been better if you didn't try to compare Zed to assassins are are almost universally considered balanced currently.

By biggest issue with Zed is that he has a ton of tools at his disposal to deal with a number of situations. That tends to be the issue with most assassins that become a problem. It's true that Zed doesn't have resets (god hate those) but that doesn't automatically mean he's fine. And unlike most resets he doesn't have to get any to remain safe. He can dump all his damage and still escape, successful or not. He's not punished for failing his purpose like many other champions are.

Guy Fox Teemo4 votes

[deleted]

Baron Von Bangin11 votes

It's just too risky a move though. Unless you're playing a melee champion you're automatically punished for following his ult shadow, as a squishy he wants to be in your face for free, not to mention the fat minion damage you'll be taking from walking down lane like that. If you follow his ult shadow he doesn't have to creating a new clone to drop deeps on you and can just use that to escape.

On top of all that, most Zed's will use his ult to avoid one of your skills. You're already at a deficit the moment he ults, shrinking your options to fight back even further and putting you at even more of a disadvantage once you're in melee with him.

BetaDude408 votes

Not to mention that now you'll be in range of three of Zed's shadows if you don't move when you ult.

Xtremey1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Baron Von Bangin,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=0LU4VGZv,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-03-11T20:57:26.308+0000)

I think your argument would've been better if you didn't try to compare Zed to assassins are are almost universally considered balanced currently.

By biggest issue with Zed is that he has a ton of tools at his disposal to deal with a number of situations. That tends to be the issue with most assassins that become a problem. It's true that Zed doesn't have resets (god hate those) but that doesn't automatically mean he's fine. And unlike most resets he doesn't have to get any to remain safe. He can dump all his damage and still escape, successful or not. He's not punished for failing his purpose like many other champions are.

if he fails his purpose he's pretty much useless.

Baron Von Bangin2 votes

But the same can be said of many other champions. If a tank fails in peeling for carries he's useless. If a WArd doesn't see the incoming ganks it's useless. But Zed is still doing big ol' fat amounts of damage to whoever he decides is going to die, unless he's just so ridiculously far behind that he cant even scratch the squishies on the enemy team then yes, I guess he's useless, like every other champ in that situation. But assuming he's a least even with his lane opponent he's going to slice face.

Tavish2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Baron Von Bangin,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=0LU4VGZv,comment-id=000200020000,timestamp=2015-03-12T17:21:09.059+0000)

But the same can be said of many other champions. If a tank fails in peeling for carries he's useless. If a WArd doesn't see the incoming ganks it's useless. But Zed is still doing big ol' fat amounts of damage to whoever he decides is going to die, unless he's just so ridiculously far behind that he cant even scratch the squishies on the enemy team then yes, I guess he's useless, like every other champ in that situation. But assuming he's a least even with his lane opponent he's going to slice face.

You're describing the assassin role in general. That's kind of what they ALL do, more or less.

Baron Von Bangin2 votes

True. But combined with all the other tools at his disposal I think that puts him a bit over the top.

Kitten of Evil21 votes

As an assassin he's fine. Balanced even! You're right, his combo is designed to allow him to fairly quickly take down enemies and it gives them a chance to respond. Personally it bothers me that his ult lets him escape even if he miscalculated or got caught (which is, after all, the point of resets -- to punish failure by trapping assassins in the enemy team, and to reward a kill with the ability to escape)

As everything else -- farmer, energy-user, pusher -- he's not fine. He has a passive which makes CSing incredibly easy. You have to be completely inept to miss a last-hit, since the % of max health adds at least 18 damage to hits on caster-minions (which have 301 HP after 3 minutes). He also has effectively free wave-clear between Q and E, both of which do work as AOE spells to clear minions even without a shadow.

He can outpush mages since the mana regen nerfs, and pushing is basically their job. Assassins are supposed to be bad at waveclear or spend a lot of mana on it -- Akali, Kat, Kha'zix, Talon... Zed also has way lower energy costs than any other ninja. And since he's AD-based, one lifesteal item gives him infinite sustain in lane.

Assassins are supposed to rely on kills rather than farm to become scary late-game. Zed can rely on either.

KaisadiIIa8 votes

And since he's AD-based, one lifesteal item gives him infinite sustain in lane.

Also, with the life steal "rework" last season, he's probably the only one that is allowed to build life steal as a first item (BotRK), since BotRK is too powerful combined with his R. So, he just has higher sustain than most champions at early game without losing any damage.

flibitydoo15 votes

{quoted}

Tl;Dr Zeds health because to wave clear he must use his Q W E. For full clear, and w has long CD. He's limited to ONE person to kill every 80 seconds, unless he's super fed and outplays the shit out of you and 1v2's. THought thats your own fault. He gets completely nullified by Zhonya's He can't constantly kill, like every other assassin in the game (Besides Rengar and Shaco)

Minion waves spawn every 30 seconds. If Zed pushes W and clears the minion wave with all of his abilities, then his W would have to have a CD of greater than 30 seconds in order to not consistently clear waves. Right now, Zed's W has a CD of 18 seconds at rank 1 scaling down to 14 seconds at rank 5. Bear in mind that the shadow is invulnerable, is summoned at 550 range, and can mimic Zeds abilities, allowing him to safely clear the entire wave without interruption. Compare this to say, Talon, who has his Rake and only his rake for waveclear. In order to clear the wave, he would either burn his ultimate, or walk up to the minions in melee range to last hit (which is would result in him taking harass, which would explain why most Talon's go Crystaline Flask). Zed's waveclear is probably the strongest in the game right now due to both his lack of mana resource and due to his low CD's and safety when doing so. Even Azir, with his "shadows" needs to expend mana.

Two of his abilities are aoe (3 technically, since his shadow mimics the other 2). Also your argument here is saying "guaranteed death every 80 seconds". So because Zed exists, you are guaranteed to die every 80 seconds or so? Perfectly fair, balanced and fun to play against. Also keep in mind that his ultimate has 80 second base CD at rank 3 and can be lowered by getting some CDR (Brutalizer for example, grants 10% cdr)

His ultimate is nullified by Zhonyas. The rest of his kit is only mitigated or reduced in effectiveness by Zhonyas.

Not only do you have zero evidence to back this point, but we're talking about Zed. A ninja. A character who doesn't use mana, but instead uses Energy. leblanc runs out of mana. talon runs out of mana. Shaco runs out of mana. Katarina has no sustain both in her kit and in her itemization path (unless you go gunblade, but then you aren't really playing assassin Katarina). Perhaps your argument is that in a teamfight, Zed can't kill a whole team. Except he can. Because he builds AD (and some lifesteal), his autos hurt, meaning that he could be completely drained and still function as a threat. Because his W gives back some energy, he can cast his 2 AOE abilities several times per fight.

I'm not trying to argue the point that Zed is imbalanced here. He's still squishy. He has no hard cc so he loses to a fed Fiddlesticks. He's a melee ranged champion with zero defensive abilities (beyond his ultimate which grants him untargetability, but he can't attack/do damage during this untargetability, and at the end of the ultimate, he ends up directly next to any enemy making it a poor disengage tool). He has no answer for getting exhausted once he goes in. And he still needs farm to actually do anything in the game. The only thing that really made Zed so strong is that he was completely unaffected by the mana regen changes. He used to not be that big of a pick. Other mages out ranged him, out cleared him, and could burst him down. The meta shifted, and everyone that could beat Zed suddenly disappeared. But the points you are trying to explain to justify him aren't at all supportive of why Zed is (was) to some degree balanced.

OJ1915 votes

{quoted}

Not only do you have zero evidence to back this point, but we're talking about Zed. A ninja. A character who doesn't use mana, but instead uses Energy. leblanc runs out of mana. talon runs out of mana. Shaco runs out of mana. Katarina has no sustain both in her kit and in her itemization path (unless you go gunblade, but then you aren't really playing assassin Katarina). Perhaps your argument is that in a teamfight, Zed can't kill a whole team. Except he can. Because he builds AD (and some lifesteal), his autos hurt, meaning that he could be completely drained and still function as a threat. Because his W gives back some energy, he can cast his 2 AOE abilities several times per fight.

this. Pre-6 Zed is quite honestly more like a middling range mobile mage (think lissandra without CC) than an assassin, he randomly uses AD and energy instead of AP and mana but that's riot's prerogative if they want to make something different, except then he has a massively hardcore assassination ultimate.

KaisadiIIa5 votes

His ultimate is nullified by Zhonyas. The rest of his kit is only mitigated or reduced in effectiveness by Zhonyas.

And so does Syndra's, Veigar's, LeBlanc's, Katarina's, Fizz's, Rengar's... I don't know why people say that "Zhonya's ruin Zed". Zhonya's ruin every single spell in this game that has a delay between its cast time and its damage, it's nothing special to Zed.

FunkyyCat12 votes

I'll just act like I didn't read that in like 10 seconds and agree with you.

Honestly though his burst is manageable if you just get a seekers pre 6 and he has many counters late game.

Malix Farwin11 votes

I have played against a zed and can confirm that he can still get kills without his ult.

KaisadiIIa7 votes

So many times I've used my R just as a gap-close, to then realize that I killed my target before the mark actually exploded.

TotalJerk8 votes

I'm not a part of the "Zed OP bullshit rito plz nerf" crowd, but the logic you're suggesting implies that Riot also believes champions like Fiora,Poppy , and Warwick are healthy, which they don't. They outright called those three unhealthy for EXACTLY the reason you're saying they think Zed is healthy.

Curling Veigar7 votes

LeBlanc also uses mana and way more squishy than zed

KaisadiIIa3 votes

And her waveclear/splitpush potential is laughable. And it takes years for her to destroy a turret. And her damage against multiple targets is useless. And she's far more item dependent than Zed. And her last-hitting potential is zero.

junglerboy162 votes

Her wave clear is actually quite good with distortion, but she has to trade her escape for clearing minions.

lB2kGRlc8y1 votes

zed cant bail out of an escape attempt 4 seconds after cast.

junglerboy162 votes

—he can bail out immediately... huh...

JacctheInsomniac7 votes

[deleted]

AMYS GRAVE2 votes

This right here ^

Zed's waveclear, splitpush, roaming, farming under tower, etc... are also all quite strong. He can do a lot without killing you.

DeusVult6 votes

You compare zed to fizz, but say that fizz has sustained damage by autoing a target because of his W

And Zed has what? Obviously his 300+ AD mean that his autos do nothing and his short CD's don't allow him to mop up kills after he very quickly and safely kills the other teams most dominant carry

SouL1ess5 votes

He gets completely nullified by Zhonya's

Who doesn't? Talon? Fizz? Leblanc?

Please stop stating this fact as something special for Zed. Every assassin needs to deal with it, not just you.

Tentakill Myself5 votes

inb4 riot sees this and make's Zed's ult reset if it kills a target.

SpecterVonBaren5 votes

Talks about Zed only being able to kill one person every 80 seconds.

This is Veigar. Veigar He'd like to have a word with you one what Riot considers healthy deletion.

PerishSoftly4 votes

Gotta say I disagree about him having "no AoE"

Zed's Q is AoE in a line, his E is AoE, an his shadow effectively doubles his AoE in a fight.

SorryBoysImLes4 votes

I'll say it again: No one cares that Zed can delete people. Many champions can. Veigar was a good example, the key word here being "was."

Do you know what happens to an Akali or Kat that go into a team fight without a zhonya's against half-competent enemies? They die. Unless they have their Zhonya's cooldown off, even then they still die often. Kat is almost like a kamikaze, she goes in and blows everything and most likely dies after landing a kill or two, if she's good she might shunpo away (yet, can still be easily pursued and caught since it's one dash.) If she isn't? She literally just gave away free gold.

Zed? "I'm just gonna use my ult to chase this Ezreal bait into a 5v1, oops, oh hey guys, so, bye."

However, that isn't too bad since a few champs can pull stuff like that off, even Akali can if they're good and didn't already blow their shroud.

Let's go to laning.

Majority of the assassins you mentioned? (excluding Nidalee but she's been broken since god knows how long, her Q is still eating 1/2 of people's HP bar) Require to be in melee, or near melee range to CS. So guess what happens? They're easily countered and bullied out of lane by almost any ranged champion. Unless they get successful roams they're s.o.l and going to be horribly behind. Play someone like Cho'gath against a Kat or Akali. It's literally a free lane. You might as well not have an enemy laner there with you.

Zed? "Oh you figured out my tactics and know how to push me out of lane? It's cool, I'll just sit BEHIND my tower, and still get just as much or more CS than you free farming."

The best way to counter most assassins is bully them when they're weak. When is Zed's weak phase? He's mobile as hell, does not need to rely on melee range in the slightest to reap CS benefits, and can delete people as easily as old Veigar. Edit: Oh right, and he can split push as good as a Xin if he pleases.

KaisadiIIa3 votes

In the worst case, you can spam Q to last-hit some minions and thus exposing yourself less than, Talon, for example, would.

Jungle Lux God4 votes

Actually, this isn't entirely true.

Zed is perfectly capable of dealing respectable damage to more than one target in a teamfight through his AoE and his relatively low cooldowns, meaning that the argument that he can only get one kill in a teamfight isn't very relevant. This inherently makes him, according to the logic that you say that Riot says he is healthy, very much the same kind of champion as the other champions you mentioned.

In addition, the reason you mentioned is not the reason that they consider Zed healthy. The reason Riot considers Zed healthy is that he gives his opponents time to react to his burst, rather than dealing his burst instantaneously. Compare this to the other assassins: if they are in range and decide to kill you, then they will kill you without you having any say in it.

That doesn't mean that the other assassins aren't healthy now, as some of the other assassins had changes that made them a lot healthier (Fizz I would argue is the healthiest assassin in the game by far), just that Riot considers Zed a healthy assassin for this particular reason.

Also, Zed has a lot of gameplay problems right now that just leave him so overtuned that you can't really deal with him. Get Zhonya's? No problem, Zed still has two other lanes to get fed off of, not to mention free waveclear because his opponent is bleeding mana and he isn't.

Auryiel4 votes

He has the tools to assassinate someone, get out, go back in one major CDs are blown and kill everyone else because he builds AD and will absolutely MURDER you in a couple of AAs

If he lives, not only does he push SUPER WELL he also takes objectives WAY faster than any of those assassins you have listed

Zed's R gives him excessive safety and it should be removed

THEN he'll be healthy

BakedLotion4 votes

Stop fucking using the Zhonya's excuse. Who the fuck doesnt get countered by zhonyas? Thats like saying buy armor against AD champs ohohohoh counter!

His waveclear and low CD makes him fking unbalanced. Along with his high base damage.
Nerf his base damage, and increase energy costs. Thats all you need to do. Zed shouldnt be godly in every phase of the game

TotalJerk2 votes

{quoted}

Who the fuck doesnt get countered by zhonyas?

Anyone who relies on instant targeted damage or Hard/CC. Sion is someone you definitely don't want to Zhonya's against, because you're just giving him time to charge his Q. Low mobility bruisers love it when you Zhonya's.

KaisadiIIa4 votes

HE CAN"T KILL MORE THEN ONE TARGET EVERY 80 SECONDS (At MAX rank that is). Every other assassin has resets or massive aoe to do it. Zed is limited to 1 target and one target only unless hes godly fed 10 and 0 in lane. Then i Almost 100% gurantee that Zed is never going to kill you by himself. Without his ult.

Is this a short joke?

Talon has a massive aoe ult that can hit an entire team twice if use correctly. He also has insane single target burst.

It must be a short joke.

Risurin4 votes

you forgot that item 3139 and item 3140 also counter his ult. (which mean, with zhonyas, only tanks and support are pretty much 100% sure targets, and tank usually have too much armor and hp to be an ideal target, which only leave the support, whom might get zhonya or be overall tanky depending which one it is lol.)

Daedalus8713 votes

I will agree with that Zed's assassination is currently the healthiest, but he is too safe in lane.

Anidan3 votes

I think, from what I've seen, people tend to believe Zed's ease of laning is bad; his slower assassination is fine. Talon's less safe laning is fine, but his extremely rapid assassination is bad.

GigglingAngel3 votes

Zed isn't balanced.

SpongeDude3 votes

Add a Qss in there that builds into mercurial anyways. 80 ad, some mr and removes every debuff. " Why Shall I get that". Well, I just 1 vs 2 with that item late game as Vayne , vs Pantheon and Lissandra , they just said : Nerf vayne. Late game the ADC and the AP can just shit on Zed. I've just had a match with him few weeks ago, both their ADC and AP bought Zhonyas/Mercurial rendering me useless. I just had to ult the support and hope for that kill ( unless she had Crucible anyway). So much counterplay against zed yet people are bitching about it.

It Hertz When IP3 votes

The problem that people have with rushing Zhonya's (from what I gathered) is not that they don't want the item per se, but that typically ever since the mana nerfs people want to be able to rush a regen item first. Against enemy mages this isn't an issue, just hammer out a Chalice first, but tbh there aren't any AP armor items that offer decent mana regen, so unless you have an entire mana regen rune page ready to go, rushing Zhonya's means that you aren't as likely to die to Zed but you'll spend an absurd amount of time hugging your turret trying to last hit with autoattacks while Zed relentlessly farms your lane and pulls ahead anyway.

I think the best solution to Zed isn't to nerf him per se, but to create an armor counterpart to Chalice.

Woook3r2 votes

I agree, he is a HELL of a lot better than katerana or nid, who has SIX ABILITIES BTW

KaisadiIIa1 votes

Ignoring the fact that Katarina is not really an assassin (she has not too much single-target damage, and most her damage comes from an AoE channeled spell, her only "assassin-like" skill is her jumps), Katarina offers far more counterplay than Zed. If you manage to avoid or interrupt her R, she has no damage left to do. Also, her early game is pretty weak and it's too easy to bully in lane (although the mana regen nerves makes it harder).

SpecterVonBaren2 votes

No, Kat is most certainly an assassin, she just goes against the design philosophy that assassins are supposed to kill one target and then get out.

Gank in Progress2 votes

he is so balanced that hes permabanned in high elo.

case closed, nerf inc.

KoKoboto1 votes

I would say Zed and Talon are like the truest Assassins as they really can only get 1 kill than are gated heavily for next 5+ seconds by cooldowns, I would even consider Fizz one as well except you can now build him tanky AD or build Zhonyas which takes away that 5+ second vulnerability

KaisadiIIa3 votes

With the difference that Zed will just press R again after he kills his target to teleport to safety until he has his skills ready again.

Stark60001 votes

um no he gets about as many multikills as katarina

iMaB3AST3 votes

Katarina has gapcloser that resets on kills where zed only has one gapcloser

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